Search Results

Andrew is an ambitious young jazz drummer single-minded in his pursuit to rise to the top of his elite east coast music conservatory. Plagued by the failed writing career of his father Andrew hungers day and night to become one of the greats. Terence Fletcher an instructor equally known for his teaching talents as for his terrifying methods leads the top jazz ensemble in the school. Fletcher discovers Andrew and transfers the aspiring drummer into his band forever changing the young man&amp;rsquo;s life. Andrew&amp;rsquo;s passion to achieve perfection quickly spirals into obsession as his ruthless teacher continues to push him to the brink of both his ability&amp;mdash;and his sanity.

Andrew is an ambitious young jazz drummer single-minded in his pursuit to rise to the top of his elite east coast music conservatory. Plagued by the failed writing career of his father Andrew hungers day and night to become one of the greats. Terence Fletcher an instructor equally known for his teaching talents as for his terrifying methods leads the top jazz ensemble in the school. Fletcher discovers Andrew and transfers the aspiring drummer into his band forever changing the young man&amp;rsquo;s life. Andrew&amp;rsquo;s passion to achieve perfection quickly spirals into obsession as his ruthless teacher continues to push him to the brink of both his ability&amp;mdash;and his sanity.

An Oscar-winning documentary based around a 1999 massacre at an American High School in Colorado, Bowling for Columbine is filmmaker Michael Moore's take on the culture of firearms violence that is, apparently, peculiar to the USA. Significantly, this is no detective investigation into the psychology and motives of the two students who randomly opened fire on their classmates, killing 12 of them--Moore regards such particulars as practically irrelevant--rather, it's an attempt to counter the moral panic and right-wing diagnoses that followed the massacre, with the likes of rock star Marilyn Manson blamed by some. Using a mixture of roving interviews, statistics, historical documentary footage, cartoon animation and the set-ups familiar to fans of his TV Nation series, Moore teases out appalling truths about gun proliferation in America. He's able to obtain a rifle by opening a bank account and shows that the bullets used in the Columbine massacre were still available at KMart--until he confronts their management with victims of the shootings. But it's not just gun proliferation that's the problem. Canada, Moore discovers, is similarly rife with firearms yet has a far lower murder rate. The problem with the US, Moore believes, is an irrational climate of fear that has driven the country to reactionary extremes since the days of the pioneers, persuading citizens that they need to be armed to the teeth. In a film short on lowlights, the highlight is Moore's confrontation with NRA President Charlton Heston. Moore's deceptively genial, shambling, regular American dude appearance (as well as his NRA membership) wins Heston's confidence and Moore teases from the actor an inadvertently racist slip of the tongue, before turning up the heat, at which point Heston terminates the interview. In this moment, the sort of anger Moore demonstrated at the 2003 Academy Awards ceremony surfaces briefly as he brandishes a picture of a gunshot victim to the retreating Heston. Funny, shrewd, righteous, hard to deny, Bowling for Columbine is uncomfortable and irresistible filmmaking. --David Stubbs

It's just business... This searing examination of the Enron accounting scandal reveals the psychology of greed and corporate corruption that facilitated the company's rise to power and also its fall. When Enron went bankrupt in 2001 the principals walked away millionaires--but later faced legal proceedings and jail sentences. Meanwhile many employees and investors were left with nothing not even their retirement savings. Shedding light on the new economy of the 1990s when predictions and book-cooking flourished without actual profits the film shows how it was not Enron alone but a network of bankers traders and accountants who turned a blind eye to the company's clearly suspicious numbers. CEO Ken Lay and top dogs Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow give candid interviews that illustrate their skill at deflecting hard questions and egotistically boasting about the company's success. In one of the company's cold and calculated moves - which caused the California power outages and lead to the ousting of governor Gray Davis - Enron employees are shown laughing at forest fires. Unbelievable footage of employees reveals unbridled greed lust for risk-taking and guiltless cheating all while thinking they could never be caught. Finally a few brave whistle-blowers stepped forward including Bethany McLean author of the Enron novel upon which this film is based who wrote an article in Fortune magazine calling the company's bluff. A remarkable documentary which packages the events of the scandal into a cohesive story this is one film not to miss!

The supernatural thriller is a stand-alone story in the tradition of some of the show's most acclaimed and beloved episodes and takes the always-complicated relationship between Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Anderson) in unexpected directions. Mulder continues his unshakable quest for the truth and Scully the passionate ferociously intelligent physician remains inextricably tied to Mulder's pursuits.

In 2009 Academy Award -winning director Alex Gibney (2007 Best Documentary Taxi to the Dark Side) was hired to make a film about Lance Armstrong&#39;s comeback to cycling. The project was shelved when the doping scandal erupted and re-opened after Armstrong&#39;s confession. The Armstrong Lie picks up in 2013 after Armstrong was stripped of his 7 Tour de France titles and presents a riveting insider&#39;s view of the unravelling of the greatest deception in sports history.

Set on the infamous trans-siberian express train this thriller follows a couple who are trying to mend their relationship with an adventure from China to Moscow. However on meeting with another travelling couple things go wrong for the pair and the adventure turns into a thrilling rollercoaster ride!

Helmed by Borat Director Larry Charles Religulous follows Bill Maher as he investigates the facts influence and people of religion in this comedic look at some of the most powerful institutions in the world.

From the director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room Alex Gibney's Taxi To The Darkside is a gripping investigation into the reckless abuse of power by the Bush Administration. By probing the homicide of an innocent taxi driver at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan the film exposes a worldwide policy of detention and interrogation that condones torture and the abrogation of human rights. This disturbing and often brutal film is the most incisive examination to date of the Bush Administration's willingness in its prosecution of the ""war on terror "" to undermine the essence of the rule of law. The film asks and answers a key question: what happens when a few men expand the wartime powers of the executive to undermine the very principles on which the United States was founded. Incorporating rare and never-before-seen images from inside the Bagram Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons and interviews with former government officials such as John Yoo Alberto Mora and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson interrogators prison guards New York Times reporters Tim Golden and Carlotta Gall (who wrote the first stories about the homicides in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan) and the families of tortured prisoners the film dissects the progression of the Administration's policy on torture from the secret role of key administration figures such as Dick Cheney Alberto Gonzales and others to the soldiers in the field. In the face of thousands of prisoners passing through the system an astonishing number of admitted homicides and a hastily drafted law - the Military Commissions Act - that grants immunity to government officials for crimes against humanity while denying the fundamental right of habeas corpus to others Taxi to the Dark Side forces us to ask why in the face of so much evidence of the ineffectiveness of cruelty as a means of obtaining information we sought to insist on its use? Have we by pursuing such ruthless means lost the moral high ground in the war on terror and made ourselves less safe? Even more important have we compromised our own sense of humanity our democratic values and our effectiveness as a world leader?

To anyone who truly understands what it means to be an American, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 should be seen as a triumph of patriotic freedom. Rarely has the First Amendment been exercised with such fervour and forthrightness of purpose. After subjecting himself to charges of factual errors in his gun-lobby expos&eacute; Bowling for Columbine, Moore armed himself with a platoon of reputable fact-checkers, an abundance of indisputable film and video footage, and his own ironically comedic sense of righteous indignation, with the singular intention of toppling the war-ravaged administration of President George W. Bush. It's the Bush presidency that Moore, with his provocative array of facts and figures, blames for corporate corruption, senseless death, unnecessary war, and political favouritism toward Osama Bin Laden's family and Saudi oil partners following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Moore's incendiary film earned Palme d'Or honours at Cannes and a predictable legion of detractors, but do yourself a favour: ignore those who condemn the film without seeing it, and let the facts speak for themselves. By honouring American soldiers and the victims of 9/11 while condemning Bush's rationale for war in Iraq, Fahrenheit 9/11 may actually succeed in turning the tides of history. --Jeff Shannon

Neil McCormick (Ben Barnes) always knew he'd be famous. A young Irish songwriter and budding genius nothing less than a life of rock n' roll stardom will do. But there's only room for one singer in school band The Hype and his friend Paul's already bagged the job. So Neil forms his own band with his brother Ivan (Robert Sheehan). There's only one problem: The Hype have changed their name. To 'U2'. And Paul (Martin McCann) has turned into 'Bono'. Naturally there's only one option for Neil: become bigger than U2. The brothers head to London in their quest for fame but their every action is dwarfed by the soaring success of their old school rivals. And when Ivan discovers the shocking truth behind Neil's rivalry with U2 it threatens to destroy everything. As his rock n' roll dream crashes and burns is Neil forever destined to live in the shadows of superstardom? And what if the answer lies in... Killing Bono?

Control told the story of Ian Curtis Joy Division is the story of the band! Told for the very fist time by the band and the people that worked closest with them this is a chronolgocial account of one of the most influential British groups of all time!

Julianne Moore stars in Savage Grace - a dramatisation of the shocking Barbara Daly Baekeland murder case which happened in a posh London flat on Friday 17 November 1972. The bloody crime caused a stir on both sides of the Atlantic and remains one of the most memorable American Tragedies. Based on the Natalie Robins book.

Against the background of the East End of London first time filmmaker Nicola Collins explores the fascinating complexity of the lives of her father and his friends; infamous criminals that shaped their war torn environment into a violent underworld. The End is a story never before been told of a group of men with a common bond. They were all born in the East End of London into poverty striving for a better life they all found that life in crime. Unashamed and unapologetic these men live their lives defined by a code of honour. The End reveals the bloody history and the confessions of the cockney gangster.

We have evil in us, all of us do, and my evil just happened to come out because of the circumstances," said serial killer Aileen Wuornos in an interview conducted shortly before her execution in 2002. Director Nick Broomfield, in this sequel to his previous documentary Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, delves further into Wuornos's horrific childhood (including an interview with her biological mother) and follows the appeals process as her case goes through its final efforts. But the movie's core are the fascinating, devastating interviews with Wuornos herself, alternately lucid and delusional as she obsesses about the police, whom she believes allowed her murders to happen to increase the potential for profit from movies and books about the case. Anyone who's seen Monster, based on Wuornos's story, will find the real woman even more compelling and frightening than Charlise Theron's award-winning portrayal. --Bret Fetzer

When the ultimate adventure becomes the ultimate nightmare.... Kevin Macdonald's excellent BAFTA-award winning docu-drama (and Evening Standard Film Of The Year 2004) based on Joe Simpson's best-selling book details the risks that climbers will take to conquer the rocky challenges before them in recounting a climbing expedition gone horribly wrong. The gripping inspiring film combines dramatic reconstructions of the potentially fatal climb and interviews with the two men it nearly killed.

A fascinating documentary about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans who presided over the greatest cultural shift of power politics in Hollywood history with the rise of 'movie brats' Francis Ford Coppola Robert Altman Dennis Hopper and Steven Spielberg...